


No One Could Bring a Shadow

by poppunkwolf



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: 90s, Backstory, Canon Bisexual Character, F/F, First Date, Friends to Lovers, Law School, Lawyers, Ophelia Harkness appears, Romance, happiness, mild angst turned fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppunkwolf/pseuds/poppunkwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A law school era throwback in which Annalise chooses joy, Eve charms someone impossible to impress, and nothing feels like it will ever hurt again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Could Bring a Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crayonboxhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonboxhearts/gifts), [thesturridgedance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesturridgedance/gifts).



> Warning: There are two very subtle and brief allusions to in-canon sexual abuse, but no other major triggers.

 

**Friday**

            The city hall building was imposing even without the knowledge that life-changing decisions were made inside it every day. A judge could give you life – or take it from you with the swoop of a pen. Twelve strangers could choose to define who you were, what justice meant, where you belonged. And these jurors – so fickle, so easily influenced by someone’s tone of voice and tone of skin and brand of suit, people who made decisions based on whether they were tired or bored or hungry – these people could do anything, really. What, then, did justice even mean?

            The crowd outside buzzed with passionate, charged, lively, early morning energy. “NOT ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN. NOT ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN.” They were no more than seventy or a hundred people – Annalise had no particular skill at doing head counts – but the fire of their cadenced chant filled the block, and they knew it filled the building, where the people responsible for the verdict were gathered. Annalise hoped every word seared their skin, hoped the repercussions of their own corruption suffocated them.

            She could feel the despair, the devastation around her, but they were also determined in that way that people knew they could be when they stood together, made sure that 6abc and Action News and Judge Millstone and everyone they could get their voices to that they were the “some of the people” who would not be fooled this time. Although she was alone in the crowd, she did not feel as such. Her sign, from campus bookstore card stock, read in thick red and black marker, “RACE ≠ EVIDENCE”. She knew that it would offend judge Millstone, sitting comfortably somewhere inside, ignoring the crowd’s chant: “UNSEAT MILLSTONE! EXECUTE CORRUPTION!” In this past year she had learned to think like the media. She knew they would call it an “ugly accusation”, but it was one that was hard to deny. How does forensic evidence pointing to someone else, the dismissal of (not just discrediting, but outright refusal to hear) the eyewitness who could have verified the defendant’s alibi, and the statement of one witness who misrepresented several aspects of Allen’s physical appearance in her statement, come to be considered sufficient evidence? Her heart ached. _How?_ She felt freshly, rawly aware, that the system was not meant to bring justice to someone like David Allen – or herself. And although she hadn’t expected her classmates to come after she’d defiantly announced the protest in Professor Carson’s class, the fact that not one of them were there was disheartening.

            It’s surprising, though, how one can get used to a classmate’s side ponytail. She saw it in the crowd and knew she recognized the dark brown waves anywhere, even if it wasn’t standing out in a sea of box braids and S curls.

            “Eve!”

            Eve turned to her, and her face lit up as she headed to Annalise.

            “This is so fucked up,” Eve’s first words were as she embraced Annalise.

            Annalise didn’t quite expect to be hugged, but getting together had brought the crowd close into a protective camaraderie, with people sharing food and safety tips and information on future actions, discussing their own stories of watching loved ones receive false convictions on absurd pretenses. On TV they might go so far as to call their gathering a riot, but as always, the protest was among the most peaceful space she had ever been in.

            Eve said, “I’ve been going over every publically available detail, and it doesn’t make any sense. What else is there if this didn’t convince people he’s innocent? I mean, their eyewitness is an idiot.”

“Have you seen anyone else from class?” Hell, from any area of Harvard Law.

            “You’re the only one,” Eve said. “Thanks for announcing it.”

            “WHAT DO WE WANT? JUSTICE! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!”

            Eve’s sign: “END DEATH ROW”. The other side said, “THE NEW JIM CROW”.

            Annalise looked up at the doors of the building. “The courtroom proceeding, it was so civilized. They didn’t drag him from a jail cell. They didn’t have the police shoot him in the street. They just faked evidence. Barely any evidence, but they pretended to go by the book with it. And it worked.”

            “I keep thinking,” Eve said, “that this is why we’re here. Learning what we’re learning, I mean. It’s not about cars or paid lunches or whatever. It’s about this. We need to do something about _this_.”

            “I have nothing to give him.” Annalise sat on one of the many steps.

            Eve sat next to her and gave her a comforting squeeze on the opposite shoulder. “I can’t tell you he’s going to live,” Eve said gently, “but we can stop it from happening again. Let’s try our goddamn hardest to unfuck the system.”

What did a pretty white girl get out of that? Annalise wondered. But this wasn’t her first conversation with Eve about corruption. She saw the criminal justice system for the circus it was. “Let’s start with Judge Millstone. Everybody on this wretched case.”

            “I hate how powerful he is,” Eve said. “That we’re up against someone so much bigger than us.”

            “We’ll take power.”

            They both knew it then. What they had been called to do. Fight for the powerless, the pawns.

            Some of the protest organizers talked about the next steps. David Allen’s family spoke. The woman, his wife, held a brand new baby, so new she wondered if Allen had met her.

            Annalise’s sense of dread increased as they stood in the crowd, but somehow Eve could tell. Eve put a comforting arm around her shoulder. It felt protective, gentle, chivalrous even. Eve wasn’t as emotional – maybe she couldn’t be. This would never hurt her the same way. She wasn’t even from this nonsensical country, as she’d said in class when some policy that she considered a given was considered experimental and wildly liberal to her colleagues. She was passionate. And every time Annalise’s feelings felt like they would heave out of her, Eve gave her a glance, and stroked her shoulder, and she at least felt better than she did before – when she thought she was alone.

            Slowly, the crowd dispersed. “I know it’s a weird shifting of gears,” Eve said. “but step one of the grand plan is to pass torts. Are you coming to my study jam?”

            “Yeah, I’ll drop by my place and get my book bag,” Annalise explained. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t ready to just stroll away, separately, after such an emotional morning. “Do you want to come along?”

            Eve agreed to accompany her, so they dropped into her apartment before heading to Eve’s.

            At Eve’s place, a handful of their classmates trickled in and got settled.

            Study jams aren’t just places to get together and study. They are opportunities for people to rip each other’s confidence to shreds, establish themselves as alpha, sabotage each other’s knowledge, and debate every possible subjective situation in order to brag about one’s creative prowess. The worst of the insufferable posturing was done by people whom they simply hadn’t clicked with and who thus weren’t in their main circle, but it was still the go-to “study” tactic of their group.

            Annalise was not above it. She was determined to shine above not just them but her entire cohort, to put five hundred nerds in their place, send them home reeking of paper, ink, and tears, show them who was going to be renowned and who would be a shooting star, but torts was one of those curveballs thrown by Satan to keep her humbled and aware that these people were probably 40th generation lawyers and couldn’t really fail. If she messed up, by contrast, she would be on the midnight train to Georgia.

            Through a series of classes and group projects and chance encounters at the library they had formed something like a friend group, or at least a group of people willing to keep each other around until some cutthroat moment they all knew was coming. Richard was appropriately named because he was filthy rich – everyone was to Annalise – but he rotated between different cars depending upon whether he wanted to look suave or businesslike, bring a bunch of friends or go to a rougher part of town. He was blond like Denise, who tried to downplay her family’s money, and blond like Christine, who seemed confused about how to get a degree without her father’s constant advice. Then there was the other Christine, who was shy and sweet and totally over her head. Peter rounded out the group, aside from herself and tall, fiercely smart and determined Eve.

            It wasn’t a surprise when Peter came crashing into the study jam at 10pm with a smug look and the greeting, “Dudes, who wants to win at life?”

            Yes, she was at Harvard, but Annalise was fully aware that she had been stumbling through life for twenty-six years and things weren’t suddenly going to get better. There was a scythe-wielding figure following her, never more than a few steps away.

            And then Peter pulled out a “Tillman” outline _with all the answers on it_ , and the feeding frenzy began. Through his internship, he’d been filing in Professor Carson’s library earlier that day when he decided to surreptitiously look up past exams. He had found something even better – one marked 1991. Torts wasn’t about answers so much as it was about “approaches,” types of arguments one should use in particular hypothetical legal scenarios, and the answer sheet essentially listed what students should say at their cleverest. He had kept it for himself like anyone would do, but then decided he’d rather spread the love. Annalise knew that Peter craved friends more than success, which was why he’d be the group’s first shooting star. The chaos resulted in a group decision to go to the library immediately to make a Xerox for everyone and then go celebrate at the bar since they didn’t actually have to study anymore.

            In the settled dust was just she and Eve, and she wondered momentarily if she was awkwardly intruding as the last remaining guest when Eve smirked and said, “Bunch of fools. It’s not like Professor Carson isn’t a conniving bastard. I bet you he left that file there on purpose as bait, and if they use those answers on the exam, they’re all going to fail _and_ get kicked out.”

            “Is that why you stayed?” Annalise asked.

            “Isn’t it why you stayed? I mean I like these people but I’m not against watching them eliminate themselves.”

            Annalise smiled. “It’s an obvious setup. If he’s gonna give us that exam on Monday, why would he have filed it already?”

            “Or,” Eve said, with conspiracy in her tone, “We all know Carson favors Peter. What if he left the exam just for him, not expecting him to share it with the entire world?”

            “I can only think of two reasons that would ever happen,” Annalise quipped. “One is that he’s his secret son, the other is that they’re banging each other.”

Eve laughed. “Okay, enough with the conspiracy stories. We both agree that cheating isn’t cool, so it looks like it’s just you and me for the rest of this study jam.”

            Annalise had another reason, and it wasn’t particularly noble, just shrewd. If it was a trap, she knew she would be the only one to suffer. She could just imagine the mob of rich daddies outside the president’s office, demanding that their precious cheating angels be re-admitted or it would break a hundred year long tradition and they would withdraw their millions of dollars in alumni support. She, meanwhile, would simply arrive, disgraced, to a house on an unnamed street to a mother she could not bear to face, where her only refuge would be getting eaten alive by mosquitos. But it didn’t seem like a story Eve would relate to, so-

            “Besides,” Eve added, “Who wants to get kicked out of school, lose their student visa, shame their family, and get deported back to the Netherlands with a scarlet A for academic dismissal?” She clicked her tongue. “I’ll stick to the books.”

“Agreed,” Annalise said. “I can hang around for a few more hours.”

“In that case, let’s order food from a Chinese place that delivers.”

            Annalise shook her head, “Uh-uh, it’s been hours of nonstop torts. Let’s walk there and talk about anything but freak accidents and unimaginable levels of negligence and who is liable for what.”

 

            “You are liable to share a fortune cookie with me,” Eve commanded, once their meal was done, which consisted for both of them of food with several orders of lychee and rice vodka because at this point it was just too late to think they were going to keep studying. “I like the fortunes but hate the cookie.”

            “And I like the cookie but can’t stand the audacity of a dessert thinking it knows anything about my life,” Annalise retorted with a serendipitous tone.

            They each took a corner and broke the cookie. Eve took the tiny slip of paper and straightened it out. The look on her face revealed only the surprise before she laughed.

            “What does it say?” Annalise asked, taking joy in the toasted sugary crunchiness.

            “No, you hate fortune cookies,” Eve retorted, with a teasing shake of her head, then she looked at the paper again and convulsed into giggles.

            Annalise thought about it for only a second before getting up and darting to the other side of the table and flinging herself into a wrestling match on the booth. Eve shrieked, garnering looks from their waiter, and Annalise kept shouting, “Just let me read it!”

            “No!!” Eve was trying to stuff the paper down her shirt, but finally, after a tangle of hair and shrieks, Annalise clawed the stupid fortune from her.

            It said, “Tell the judge guilty! It will work out I promise.”

            “That’s specific,” Annalise deadpanned.

            Eve was not done being amused. “No but just imagine telling your client to be like ‘why yes I did murder my wife, your honor’. And secretly in your head you’re like ‘I must obey the fortune cookie’.”

            “You’re silly, it’s bad advice, and you can’t even add ‘in bed’ to it,” Annalise complained.

            “Speaking of that,” Eve sat up with a giggle. She moved her hair out of her face, first with her fingers, then with a light toss. “You’re probably not as wasted as me, but you shouldn’t go home alone drunk. Plus I have like, the _perfect_ pajamas for you.”

            Annalise didn’t know what that could possibly mean, but she suspected that 80% of her saying yes was out of curiosity, which is how she ended up in Eve’s bedroom wearing red shorts and a blue tie dye t-shirt, the kind that literally every person had. “How is this perfect _for me_?” she asked.

            Eve pointed her finger almost directly on Annalise’s bellybutton. “Because you’re like perfect in blue.”

            Annalise’s cheeks burned at the flattery and the light touch. They practically collapsed into Eve’s bed. Where they collapsed was not the most relevant thing to Annalise. The good part, the thing she would continue to think about all weekend, was waking up with their toes touching, feet completely entangled, like she wasn’t necessarily going to escalate it to cuddling, but somewhere in her subconscious she couldn’t stand not to touch the woman with the perfect hair.

**Saturday**

            Annalise had been awake for a few moments, laying in Eve’s pillow, when Eve opened her eyes and gave a sweet, sleepy smile. She stretched as she crawled out of bed and went to the kitchen. Annalise lay there for a moment, until Eve came back and announced, “Coffee!” Annalise sat up and reached with grabby hands to the night stand that held the coffee, proving that Eve was some kind of fairy goddess from a land where they had their priorities in order.

            Eve sat on the bed. “I want to get back to work soon, but I have this friend Jill, who goes to MIT, and she’s having a brunch I want to pop into. It won’t throw us off our game since we have to eat breakfast anyway. Come with me.”

            Annalise knew it was absurd to feel butterflies about being invited to a stranger’s house by a _classmate_ (a classmate whom she now knew was a stomach sleeper and who could get through three drinks before considering it necessary to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” for seven blocks, with passersby both drunk and sober as her backup), but still. Being included gave her a feeling she felt ridiculous for having, but also wanted to lean toward. Overnight she had gone from seeing everyone in a four thousand mile radius as strangers or at best acquaintances, to waking up in the bed of a woman who brought her coffee and casually used _us_ and _we_ like she hadn’t thought twice about it.

            “Let me stop by my place so I can shower,” Annalise said, so they found themselves in Annalise’s apartment again. Last time, Eve had been there for thirty seconds while she grabbed a book bag, but this time Eve would wait in her living room while she showered and dressed. When she had visitors, Annalise was hyper aware of what her home looked like, especially because she didn’t have the tasteful art deco of Eve’s place, just the plain necessities her grad school salary allowed. But when Eve spun around and plopped into her bean bag chair, and opened up her coffee table book by Kevyn Aucoin, settled and content, she couldn’t help but mirror the feeling.

            At least some part of her was willing to admit she was hoping just the tiniest bit that maybe there was some world where Eve touching her and telling her she was perfect was more than drunken randomness. The rest of her, the sensible part of her that always held her back, knew that to even become friends with Eve, let alone be more than friends, was to drag her under the cloud and expose her to the malevolent thing, whatever it was that caused so much suffering to her and the people around her. Good or evil, they were all vulnerable to it. Daddy, who had been her protector, then Charlene, the classmate who had drowned a week after teaching her a new double dutch trick, then, well then – she did not know how to make sense of Clyde, so she did not even try. But he was dead too, and the fact that she was glad didn’t change her awareness that this figure was out to get everyone around her. Even her first year economics professor in undergrad, whom she hadn’t so much as attended an office hour with, had died in his sleep.

            Dressed, Annalise entered the living room and watched Eve for a moment as she flipped through the coffee table book. “I think I should stay here,” she said.

            Eve put the book down. “You’re not hungry?”

            She shrugged. “I just have a lot to do.”

            “You mean study.” Eve seemed bemused. When Annalise didn’t answer, Eve said, “Okay, I won’t be nosy. I’ll see you on Monday and you can call me if you want someone to talk torts with.” Eve shrugged and turned to leave.

            “Wait,” Annalise said.

            Eve turned around. She gave a casual smile, tilting her head, and shrugged at the floor. She spoke slowly, carefully. “I’m just gonna say it because I don’t want you to be weirded out. I know you’re freaked out. Because I should have put you on my couch, and I may have called you perfect and I think I drunkenly flirted with you, and I realize I misread a cue or two. You’re um, not into it, which I understand. But we can start over, and I’ll be way less embarrassing-”

            “No!” Annalise blurted, to Eve’s silence. “No, I mean, that’s not what I was thinking. And you don’t have to be embarrassed. I like being flirted with. We should try it sober some time.”

            They both looked at each other for a moment of uncertainty and then broke into relieved laughter.

            So it was out there. And she wasn’t here to break hearts, platonically or not, so refusing to go to the brunch suddenly seemed like the wrong move. “I’m ready to leave if you are,” she said.

            Brunch was fun, and Jill was sweet as the blueberry waffles she served. Everyone but them got tipsy on mimosas. Eve held one delicately in her fingers and clinked her glass with Annalise’s with a “to only having one of these so we can ace torts.” The other guests took a special interest in Annalise, asking her how long she’d known Eve, and what she and Eve had been up to, and whether she and Eve had planned any summer trips.

            “Your friends think we’re married,” Annalise whispered teasingly.

            Eve cringed. “Is that weird for you? I’ll tell them-“

            “No, I think it’s funny,” Annalise said, then, worried that her comment came across as if she didn’t take it seriously that they could be together, added, “and sweet.”

            Annalise tried to picture herself as Eve’s girl, them arriving at a brunch with Eve’s hand placed at the small of her back or on her hip.

            Then she thought about Christine who couldn’t make a decision without a team of advisors. She, Annalise, could decide things; she was a ‘90s woman after all. The demon thing could kiss her ass, she decided. Maybe it was the liquor talking (she was a lightweight) or maybe the natural high, but it truly felt like no one could bring a shadow to her day. She wanted Eve, and she was going to be fearless about showing it.

 

            “But let’s say that William really didn’t check what his speed limit was, and was going 5 miles per hour higher than the speed limit? Do they just pay little Freddie’s family and walk away?” Eve yelled, sitting across the book-covered dining table. “That’s crazy!”

            “Whether a person is liable under the state of Massachusetts is not dependent upon ambiguous facts such as his personal attentiveness to whether he was following the law-“

            “But he injured a kid, so I would establish that the personal freedom to pay them off and walk away doesn’t weigh above his liability-“

            “But it’s torts,” Annalise objected. “Liability is not about fairness.”

            “Since when?” Eve said. “Since when is the objective so removed from fairness that we can’t even have it as our underlying principle?”

            “What fairness did David Allen get?” Annalise shot back.

            Eve stood, floored, for a minute, moving her mouth like she wanted to say something.

            “Yeah. That man was guilty until proven innocent, and I’ll never let anyone I defend believe that innocence means anything about whether they’ll get off.  I won’t even ask clients if they’re innocent. That’s how much it literally does not affect their case.”

            Eve sat quietly, chastised. They both looked at each other for a moment, silent.

            Eve spoke. “I want the telephone company, as an entity doing a semi-public service, to have primary liability, because they are the ones who could and should have thought about the greater good when they refrained from doing a check on the stability of their poles, including the pole that fell on that little boy.”

            Annalise shook her head. “I agree that they should have done maintenance, but I wouldn’t expect them to. The idea that things automatically work – the telephone company, schools, the judicial system – is not true.”

            The rest of the study session was quietly focused. They ordered from an American diner down the street, each getting her own meal but splitting a thing of potato skins because it was too massive for one person. Eve had a selection of fruit and other snacks, so they persisted on that as well as the day crept along.

            “I wonder what Peter and co are doing right now,” Eve wondered.

            “I really didn’t want to be on the top of my class by default,” Annalise said, “But here we are.”

            “Yes _we_ ,” Eve said. “Professor Carson’s crown would look nice on that pretty head but who said you’re not going to have to pry it off mine?”

            “Oh I see what this is,” Annalise teased back, as she looked the other woman up and down. “This is about keeping your enemies closest. Well I’m way ahead of you.”

            They tried to hold an aggressive gaze but ended up cracking up less than a second in.

            “So it’s almost midnight,” Annalise said. “I should go.”

            “You could stay again,” Eve suggested.

            “I have a thing tomorrow.”

            “What kind of thing?”

            “Just, you know,” Annalise did a hand wave.

            “You are so cryptic.”

            Annalise sighed. “I have to see my mama.”

            “That’s sweet,” Eve said.

            “No – I’d rather jump out of your third story window.”

            Eve knitted her eyebrows.

            “It’s my reminder that I don’t call enough, don’t help her because I’m so far from home, need to eat more, and that I should be ashamed for never getting in town in time for church.” She said church the way someone would say “jury duty”.

            “And are you ashamed?”

            Annalise knew Eve meant the question to be playful, to lighten the mood, to have a hint of satire because Annalise clearly, from her own tone, did not give a damn about church. But Eve had struck a nerve, and Annalise let out a “ugh!!” and dramatically collapsed onto the carpet, literally no more energy in her body.

            “Hey.” Eve came over and put her two hands on Annalise’s shoulders. “Hey.” Annalise felt like she was made of led and was being pulled into the floor, but Eve took her face gently, delicately in her hands, and tilted her chin up. She had tried to keep it bitter rather than sad but Eve somehow reading the emotions she was trying to cover made her feel those feelings even harder.

            “You don’t have to do things that make you unhappy.”

            Who the hell gets away with that philosophy? The world was filled with doing things that made you unhappy. They weren’t, for example, studying for torts _for fun_. People stood in line at the DMV, they got dental work, and they visited their cantankerous mothers.

            “But if you want the company, I’m free tomorrow.”

 

**Sunday**

            Annalise rarely introduced anyone to Mama unless she wanted to chase them away. But this time it was about Eve. About spending at least one more moment with her before summer vacation gave them less of a reason, or at least stung her with the awareness that they were being held together by the torture of finals week, and maybe were not the type of people who got together without the convenience of class. They got into torts arguments the whole way to Eatonton, practicing their debate skills, their memorization of cases, and their ability to out-maneuver the law based on knowing it so well.

            Mama probably wouldn’t love Eve, but she’d be something resembling polite. Annalise hoped. They drove the three hours it took, playing everything from Whitney Houston to Duran Duran along the way.

            “I can’t believe you take this commute every weekend,” Eve said.

            “Once or twice a month,” Annalise corrected. “Still, a long commute, especially to be reminded that I’m skin and bones, need a man, and don’t call enough.”

            “I love my ma, but there’s a reason I’m not within visiting distance,” Eve contributed. She took Annalise’s hand. “Don’t worry about me by the way. I’m mom kryptonite. They can’t resist me.”

            Annalise wanted to laugh in Eve’s face but settled with a knowing snort.

            “What was that?”

            “That was a ‘good luck’ laugh,” Annalise said. “You’ll need it.”

            “Oh, so you don’t believe me? She’s gonna say ‘Eve, you’re perfect, like the daughter I never had since Annalise never comes to see me.”

            Annalise tried and failed to suppress a laugh, glancing sideways at Eve. “You’re a horrible person. You should be glad I’m not mad at you for that.”

            “I know what’s okay with you, I think. I’ve got you figured out, Ms. Annalise.” Her smile was so affectionate.

            “Okay, there’s something you need to know. I haven’t told my mother something, and I know she’s gonna be really upset if she finds out, which is why she can’t know.”

            Annalise looked again at Eve, whose expression was open and tinged with concern. Looking forward at the road, she sighed. “It’s not horrible, I just need to get you on board so it doesn’t turn into the Cold War.”

           “What is it?”

            “My mama named me Anna Mae,” Annalise explained. “Anna Mae Pearl Harkness.”

            Eve gave her a confused look. “Okay, so Annalise is your nickname. Okay.”

            “Annalise Harkness is my legal name, because I had it changed. Anna Mae is the most backwater, country bumpkin, not-a-real-lawyer-or-professional-of-any-kind, grew-up-in-a-barn name my mother could have stuck me with, and I’ve hated it ever since I was little. I always tried to get teachers and friends to call me something else. My undergraduate degree says Anna Mae on it and I can’t even look at it. So when I came to Harvard, I realized I could have another degree that embarrassed me forever, or I could change my name.”

            “I think Anna Mae is adorable,” Eve said. “But maybe it’s not you – I get that.”

            “Thank you. But my mother isn’t gonna understand. If she did, she would have called me by the other names I tried out in the past. So I haven’t even tried.”

            “If she knew you changed it for real, or at least that I and other people call you Annalise, she might rethink it,” Eve suggested. “But I don’t know. You’re the expert on your mom, and I’m not here to step on any toes.”

            “Maybe,” Annalise said plainly.

            “She knows I’m coming, right?”

            “Yes, I told her I was bringing a friend.”

            Annalise could see Eve’s nervous lip bite in her peripheral.

            “She doesn’t seem like someone you tell a lot of things to,” Eve began. “Like about people you’re interested in, you know, just as an example. So I’m just assuming…”

            “She’s not some type of liberal parent,” Annalise responded. “She isn’t the type of woman to sit you down and ask you to share your feelings, or to think that your biggest goal in the world should be to have fun and be yourself. She’s widowed, she’s not a rich woman – the other thing you should know about my family. I’m not like everyone else at Harvard and my mama’s not like everyone else’s mama at Harvard. But she scraped together everything she had for the plane ticket when I got into college. And she sewed all of my school play outfits. And when she caught me hooking up with girls several different times when I was younger, she wasn’t mad at me. She even defended me from what the reverend had to say, even though she wasn’t thrilled and it was more about how the reverend is a dirty hypocrite for some reason. She hasn’t always protected me, so I struggle with her. I also try to put bad things behind me and forgive her. But I think she accepts a lot about me because I do so many things differently than she would, and she knows she just has to let me.”

            “She sounds like she kicks ass,” Eve said. “And she sounds like she cares a lot about you.”

            “I believe she loves me,” Annalise said agreeably. “But she’s still insufferable, and if you want to trade places with me and be the daughter she never had, be my guest.”

 

            Mama’s first words to Eve were, “And you must be who Anna Mae be out here spending all her time with since she sure aint been to see me.”

            Annalise’s blood did not even have time to fully flush from her face before Eve answered, “I’m Eve, and you must be the lady Annalise couldn’t stop talking about wanting to see. I see where she gets her quick wit from.”

            Mama looked Eve up and down. “You know good and well this girl aint got nothing nice to say about her mama.”

            “I’m right here because I wanted to see you,” Annalise chimed in, lying.

            “Well come on in then,” Mama said, beckoning them inside.

            Dinner was gumbo that had been simmering on the pot. They sat at the table, the sun of the evening dusk bringing in a moody brightness.

            “Miss Eve Rothlo,” Mama uttered, as if she were about to state charges against her. “When did you meet my Anna Mae?” She issued this inquiry while scooping more food into Eve’s bowl without asking.

            Eve looked at Annalise, looking for confirmation in her gaze. “Annalise?” she mouthed.

            Annalise nodded.

            Eve said with a smile, “It was fall, in class. Annalise volunteered to be the first to present how she would argue a case in criminal law, and I thought she was crazy. In a good way, though – so I started talking to her and we’ve known each other all school year. I’m excited to say we’ve almost made it to the end of first year together. Especially now that I’m here with you too, having the best gumbo I’ve ever had.”

            Mama looked at Eve for a moment. “Well you could just charm the green off some grass, can’t you?” She then turned to her daughter. “’ _Annalise’_. Sound like you tryna be a princess.”

            Annalise slipped from her chair and searched the freezer, then pulled a tub of butterscotch ice cream from beneath a few boxes. Belatedly, she responded, “I’m not trying to be a princess, Mama. I just like that name.”

            “Don’t you sass me,” Ophelia shot, though Annalise could tell she wasn’t particularly angry yet.

            “Do you want a bowl?” She turned from Eve to Mama, who both shook their heads. Good, because she was going to need all of it to get through this.

            Eve was put up on the living room couch bed while Annalise was assigned to share the bedroom with her mama, and that was it, the confirmation that her mama knew, and was separating the two of them like a pair of high schoolers.

            “Annalise. Harkness,” Mama said to her as they both prepared for bed.

            Annalise waited for her mother’s judgement. ”Yes?”

            “I hardly recognized you, coming up in here with your new big-city lawyer airs, talking real proper, with that new name and that lil white girl at your hip.”

            “Mama, I don’t want to fight about this.”

            “I know you don’t want to fight, cuz I’m your mama no matter how grown you think you are, so there aint no fight, there’s just my word and my house and what I got to say. And what I got to say is, I don’t understand you for nothing, but I do love you and I worry about you all the time. I worry about you _all the time_ , missy. So far away, going to such a big school all alone. But I see how that girl look at you, and heard how she talked about you. And now I know you’re not alone out there. If somebody care about you that much, I got no problem with them.”

            Annalise gazed at her mama who was pulling the covers back to get in bed. “I’m glad you like her. Your approval is important to her.” She almost smiled, realizing two things. Now that she had Mama’s approval, she could acknowledge that it meant something to her to have it. And now that her mama had said it, she could acknowledge that Eve did, in fact, care for her.

            “Well good then. Now say your prayers and go to bed, _Anna Mae_.”

 

            When Mama sent them off in the morning with a “Don’t be a stranger, now,” directed specifically at Eve, she wondered what kind of supernatural charm Eve possessed.

            They talked about torts all the way to Eve’s apartment, when Annalise dropped Eve off for the very first time since Friday, and they officially parted ways.

            Alone in her apartment, Annalise had time to process the whole weekend but especially their trip to see Mama. Mama, who had gone out of her way to be nice to Eve; and Eve, who had seemed unfazed by her humble beginnings.

 

**Monday**

            Annalise, Eve, Peter, Rich, Christine, Christine, and the several hundred other people in the course filed into class that evening. Her classmates seemed confident. The scenario in the test described a man who worked at a grocery store and formed a company extracurricular sloshball league, which was never officially approved by the company even though the store manager knew about it and joined in. During the game, he went up to bat, and when he swung, he missed, and the ball hit the umpire, rendering him unconscious. The employees decided that the least drunk amongst them must drive him to the hospital, but they got stuck in traffic and the umpire died. What, the test asked, are the legal responsibilities of all involved?

            Annalise felt excessively sorry for the umpire, the batter, and their cloud of doom. She argued the case that the manager had the greatest liability, for issuing alcohol at what was known as a company-sponsored event, alcohol which led to the impaired decision not to just call an ambulance. She explored all of the variables, such as the unlikely scenario that people signed a liability release form.

            The test felt significantly shorter than it was. She sat for a moment, staring at her finished test. She had the intention of reviewing it, but her shoulders clenched and her heart raced as she realized that this was the culmination of all her work this semester and year, a year of culture shock and shockingly cold weather and classmates condescending her with posh accents, and distance from her family, however tiresome they could be, and being the one black student in some classes, and what felt like the only person in the school’s history to not arrive with a silver spoon, and the ten month long feeling that the other shoe would drop, that someone would arrive to tell her there had been a terrible mistake, she was not good enough, and escort her back to a town with few enough people that they could fit inside a high school stadium, where she would spend her life having babies for some man in a wife beater.

            But she knew she had to choose not to spiral there, and so she shook herself, checked her answers, stood up tall, and handed her paper in.

            On her way out, Eve flashed her five fingers to indicate she was almost done, so she took a seat right outside the class to wait. It was a vibrant sunny day, the kind they had begged the universe for during the earliest months of the year when the concept of being surrounded by white bullshit took on a different, weather-related meaning. Now, with her last exam completed, she was very aware that the sun was out and the flowers were in bloom, and everything seemed promising, if it was possible to have that much of a one-eighty in life outlook in one half-hour time period.

            Eve burst through the doors, her feathered hair framing a face with a confident smile. “Okay, first of all, we knocked it out of the park,” Eve said, as she took Annalise’s arm in her own, and Annalise fell in step toward the parking lot. “We spent the weekend talking about everything they ended up asking. Second, did you see the panic when they handed out the test? Christine started crying! I don’t know what was on their cursed answer sheet, but I think we can agree it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be. But guess who had a sly smirk on his face?”

            Annalise’s eyes widened. “Peter set them up.”

            “Who does that? He’s going to be public enemy number one for the rest of grad school. I mean, unless his plan worked so well they’ll be gone after this.”

            Annalise laughed. “We were right about our paranoia.”

            “I care less about them and more that we did it! Are you freaked out? We just finished our first year and I’m freaked out!” Eve’s arm link turned into a giddy hand squeeze.

            “I feel freaked out in a really good way,” Annalise replied, getting caught up in Eve’s energy and frolicking through campus with her, giggles and smiles.

            Eve turned to her so quickly and so urgently that _she_ got whiplash. “Let’s celebrate! I know we’re not gonna get our test answers until Thursday, but we know we passed. Can you imagine how fun it would be to go to New York for a few days?”

            “Just drop everything?” Annalise asked.

            “Drop what? We both got the summer fellowship so we’re on our own schedules, and we need a break after the year we’ve had. I’ll call my friend and we’ll stay with her and her girlfriend in Lower Manhattan. We’ll stay just long enough to soak up the city!”

            Part of Annalise was skeptical that beautiful, energetic, hilarious Eve was interested in spending even more time – days, with her but part of her was still holding Eve’s hand. She gave it a squeeze. “Let’s do it.”

            They were lucky that their wait for the train at 30th Street Station was just a little under an hour. The area nearby had a record-shop with a life-size cardboard cutout of Michael Jackson in the window, and they skipped inside the small, dimly-lit store that was playing some moody heavy-metal sound Annalise didn’t recognize. They took turns finding and showing each other their first albums ever (Eve’s was _Arrival_ by ABBA, while Annalise’s was _Thriller_ ) and their favorite albums at the moment (Eve’s was Sinéad O'Connor’s latest, and Annalise’s was still _Thriller_ ), then they laughed together as they made fun of the more ridiculous album covers ("Too bad when these people get raptured they can't take these rad dog costume suits they're wearing with them," Eve quipped). They went back to the train station approaching four in the evening. Annalise noticed how bouncy people’s energy was as they all boarded the train. A mom with four kids, each with a different colored popsicle, ushered her brood patiently down the aisle. Most women were wearing sun dresses. Since so many schools had just gone to summer break simultaneously, there was a sense that summer was finally here.

            The ride was six hours, and by the third, Eve had snuggled her head into Annalise’s shoulder and fallen asleep, which was slightly jarring because she was supposed to be navigating and also because Annalise felt responsible for nurturing the delicate state of sleep Eve was in. She put her had against Eve’s, nuzzling the feathered curls, her face touching the soft skin of Eve’s forehead before retreating from the intimacy of the touch.

            She managed to stay awake for at least a few hours, but then her eyes got droopy.

            “Hey,” Eve mumbled. “You go to sleep.” Eve reached and stroked her chin, the side of her drooping face, her hair, and with gentle hands guided her face to Eve’s shoulder.

            Annalise shifted so that she was comfortable against Eve, which involved having her lips at least within a centimeter of Eve’s shoulder. She drifted, feeling Eve’s fingers intertwined in hers.

            Eve woke her one stop away. Annalise yawned, hoped to Jesus, Zeus, any god that was willing to help her that she hadn’t drooled, snored, or otherwise been unsightly. Eve was looking at her, though, with that look she had come to realize was all for her, the one that was gentle, and exploring, and longing all at once, so she assumed she had not ruined everything quite yet.

            Natalie and her girlfriend were waiting at the train station for them. When Eve saw Natalie, they both immediately screamed bloody murder and ran into each other’s arms. Natalie scooped Eve up and spun her as they yelled an incoherent cluster of excited words.

            “LET’S PARTY!” Natalie shouted, jumping up and down with her.

            The girlfriend turned to Annalise. “I’m Carla,” she said with the knowing laugh and welcoming smile of someone who was also not in on the reunion.

            “I’m Annalise.” Annalise shook her hand and smiled back.

            “Eve’s told us a lot of great things about you.”

            “Really?” Annalise said. It had been four days of being so attached to one another, she couldn’t imagine when Eve would have made any phone call.

            “Yeah, like months ago she said you were the smartest person in her cohort-”

            “Annalise!” Eve called, as she was being put down. “This is Natalie.”

            “Hey!” Natalie said, then sent Eve a sly smile and stage whispered, “You were right, she’s fucking gorgeous.”

            “I hate you,” Eve, looking at Natalie, mumbled through her clenched teeth, as she pulled her toward the parking lot and announced, “Let’s get in the car.”

 

            The fabric store was a flurry of sequins and faux fur and metallic lamé, along with makeup and wigs in every color. Everything was both tacky and irresistible. The plan: Get the loudest and most fabulous materials they could find, bring them back to the apartment so they could cut and sew and transform them into unique club outfits (Natalie was in the city for fashion design after all), and then be the hottest girls in the place.

            Eve gasped at a display of makeup. “Let’s do it,” she urged Annalise, who turned and laughed.

            “This is the most glittery lipstick I’ve ever seen,” Annalise said, picking up a shade of green. “I feel like all you have to do is put it on to get magicked to the Emerald City.”

            “That’s a good thing!” Eve said, when Annalise shook her head.

            “Fine,” Annalise said, finding Eve’s energy hard to resist. “What color should I wear?”

            Eve cast her gaze to Annalise’s lips and fixed her eyes there. She bit her own bottom lip ever so gently. Annalise didn’t know quite how to respond to the total desire in Eve’s gaze, especially when she took one step closer. The corner of Eve’s lips turned up into a smile. She diverted her gaze back to the makeup display, then to Annalise again. She tilted her head slightly, not breaking her eyes from Annalise. Eve turned to the display and picked up a vibrant, glittery navy blue lipstick. “You’d be perfect in so many colors,” Eve said. “But this is so right for tonight.”

            Annalise considered the bold look. “Okay, but only if you wear a bright color too.”

            “Well,” Eve said. “I would love to take a trip to Oz. What about the green?”

            “Or,” Annalise said, examining Eve’s features, “since there’s no place like home…” She picked up the dazzlingly glittery red. “You’d look amazing in this ruby color.”

            Eve took the lipstick with a smile. “Now we just need to find the perfect matching outfits.”

 

            Natalie, Eve, and Carla primped and tugged at Annalise until she was glam and glitzy, wearing a bright red halter-neck sequined mini dress with the same blue-red color scheme as Eve’s mini shorts and triangle bikini top.

            At Studio 54, Eve pulled Annalise closer on the dance floor. They jammed to CeCe Peniston’s “Finally” and C&C Music Factory’s “Everybody Dance Now” and they laughed together for no reason.  Eve took both of her hands and placed a glittery kiss against her lips. So high on the feeling of adventure and joy of the night, neither she nor Eve had had a drop of alcohol but suddenly she felt the room spinning, as her own world fully collided with Eve’s in an impact only they could feel. Eve’s two hands wrapped around her waist, and she pulled her fingers through Eve’s hair, and they softly, urgently, deeply kissed against the backdrop of drunken club kids. Eve was gentle and sweet and tasted like mint and lipstick. Annalise felt like nothing could ever hurt them.

            Later, as they strolled out holding hands and stopping every few seconds to kiss and to laugh, they saw each other under the street lights and fell into each other giggling.

            “Soooooo purple,” Natalie commented, with an added, “Good thing you’re both pulling off the smeared glitter lipstick look right now with ultra chicness.”

 

**Early Morning Tuesday**

            Natalie put them on her living-room pull-out couch bed. Eve, wearing her standard tank and shorts, climbed in. Annalise turned the light off and crawled right on top of Eve.

            There’s so much to convey through touch, through the way fingertips explore skin and heat and the slightest shift in mood and response. Eve kissed her oh so gently but her fingertips tugged at Annalise’s tee with the urgency of falling, and her warm torso against Eve’s made her not even worry about, not even care about what would happen when they hit ground.

            In the morning they would lie together, touching fingertips, sharing languid kisses as they traced each other’s bodies. So close, and so fearless, Annalise felt like everything could only get better.


End file.
